Dollar trade at N393 as forex speculators shed N100b

Foreign exchange (forex) speculators will lose over N100 billion in the next one month as dollar exchanges at N393 at parallel market amid Central Bank of Nigeria (CBN) sustenance of massive funding for Bureaux De Change (BDC) operators.

President of the Association of Bureaux De Change Operators of Nigeria (ABCON), Aminu Gwadabe, who disclosed this at the weekend in Lagos said the apex bank is committed to improving  funding for over 5,000 BDCs nationwide in new move to deepen market liquidity and protect the Naira against speculators.

He called for return of normalcy to the market as the ongoing speculative behaviour is hampering  the market operations and stability will come at huge loss to speculators.

The ABCON boss linked the continued fall of the Naira at the parallel market and Investors’ and Exporters’ (I&E) Forex window to currency speculators  hoarding dollars to profit from the currency crisis.

He said the perpetrators are creating artificial scarcity of the greenback  within market to cause more woes for the local currency.

Gwadabe said the ABCON management and the CBN-licensed BDCs would fight alongside the regulator to ensure that speculators lose their capital should they persist in the illegal activity.

“The ABCON and CBN have observed with disdain the speculative behaviour currently beclouding the market with the misinformation  that the CBN has adopted I&E window as its official rate. The above information is not true because as operators we still funded our accounts at our normal rates of N393/$  and not the I&E window rates  for our operation this  Friday,” he said.